Americas

A growing number of workers’ organizations are building for a mass
workers’ demonstration in Washington, D.C. on October 17 to protest the
government’s anti-labor policies, the occupation of Iraq, the attack on
civil liberties, and the budget cuts to desperately needed social
programs while Wall Street and the super-rich get tax breaks.

The organizers of the Million Worker March (MWM) model their campaign
after the Poor People’s March organized by the civil rights movement and
Martin Luther King Jr. 36 years ago, to inaugurate a "war on poverty at
home." King declared that the vast arsenal of death unleashed by the
Pentagon on the people of Vietnam was in reality a war on working people
at home and abroad.

His words echo even more true today, with U.S. imperialism occupying
Iraq and the vast majority of working Americans under attack by big
business. Today, the urgency to reignite a vast movement of working
people to fight for fundamental social change is greater than ever.

Between 1973 and 2000, the average real income of the bottom 90% of the
U.S. population declined while the income of the top 1% increased 123%,
and of the top 0.01% rose 600% (New York Times, 12/18/03). Social
services and funding for schools, libraries, affordable housing, and
healthcare have been slashed.

Decent-paying jobs are disappearing through outsourcing and
privatization, while new jobs that are created pay half what the lost
jobs did. In the U.S. and across the globe, sweatshop conditions and
starvation wages are proliferating.

The MWM mission statement declares: "The time has come to mobilize
working people for our own agenda. Let us end subservience to the power
of the privileged few and their monopoly of the political process in
America…Let us forge together a social, economic, and political movement
for working people. We are the many .The secretive and corrupt who
control our lives are the rapacious few."

The call for the MWM was initiated by Local 10 of the International
Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), striking a responsive cord among
progressive workers across the country. The National Education
Association, representing 2.7 million teachers and educational support
staff, voted to endorse the rally at its national convention of 12,000
delegates. The March has also been endorsed by all ILWU locals on the
West Coast, the South Carolina AFL-CIO, the National Coalition of Black
Trade Unionists, a rapidly growing list of union locals and labor
councils across the country, and anti-war and immigrant rights
organizations.

This comes against the background of AFSCME and SEIU, the two largest
AFL-CIO unions representing three million public and service sector
workers, each passing resolutions at their national conventions calling
for an immediate end to the occupation of Iraq and to bring all U.S.
troops home.

Union Leaders Oppose March

Incredibly, instead of supporting this campaign, the AFL-CIO leadership
sent a memo to all affiliated bodies urging them "not to sponsor or
devote resources to the demonstration in Washington, D.C., but instead
to remain focused on the election…We think it is absolutely crucial that
we commit the efforts of our labor movement to removing George W. Bush
from office."

While the AFL-CIO leadership has been largely silent or passive in the
face of big business’s war on workers and occupation of Iraq, it has now
managed to find the will to campaign against the idea of a Million
Worker March!

Their opposition to the MWM is the logical outcome of the "Anybody But
Bush" alliance with John Kerry. This alliance is based on the labor
movement subordinating itself to the policies and strategy of the big
business Democratic Party. Any serious labor mobilization like the MWM
will embarrass our "friends" Kerry and the Democrats by raising issues
they completely oppose, and must be stopped, according to the logic of
lesser-evilism.

But history shows that all the gains we have won - from the 40-hour
workweek to the right to vote - were due to the independent mobilization
of working people bringing the maximum pressure to bear on big business.

While no resources will be put towards the MWM, the AFL-CIO will spend
over $160 million to help Kerry and the Democrats. This money would go
much further in advancing the interests of workers if it went to
building the MWM and to launch a massive campaign to unionize Wal-Mart,
for example.

All of this highlights the need for the union movement to break with the
Democratic Party and begin to organize independently to defend our
interests through mass protests, industrial actions, and building a new
political party to represent the interests of workers.

The ILWU and the unions that are participating in the Million Worker
March have endorsed Kerry for the November elections - a serious
mistake. But the fact that they are already starting to organize to put
pressure on the political establishment with a radical program is an
indication of the direction things are headed after the election, when
Bush or Kerry will seek to impose an austerity program to make workers
pay for the cost of war and the crisis of the capitalist system.

The new administration will most likely not only face a serious defeat
in Iraq but also a rising tide of working-class opposition at home. The
MWM can play an important role in starting to organize all those who
want to fight against the corporate-dominated system, the
Wal-Martization of the economy, and against war abroad and at home.

Given the paralysis of most of the official labor movement, a mass
demonstration in Washington, followed by conferences at the local level
to bring together all those forces that want to fight back on a common
platform, would represent a real step forward for the labor and anti-war
movements.

The Million Worker March is fighting for

Universal single-payer healthcare

Jobs for all

Cancellation of NAFTA & FTAA

An end to privatization, contracting out, deregulation and the
pitting of workers against each other across national boundaries in
a mad race to the bottom

Funding for public education and housing

Increased taxes on the rich and corporations

An end to environmental destruction

Rebuilding our decaying inner cities

Amnesty for all undocumented workers

Repeal of the Patriot Act and the anti-union Taft Hartley Act

Slashing the military budget and recovering trillions of dollars
stolen by the corporations that profit from war